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#219452 - 23/06/2004 23:05 The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
FINALLY!


After a lot of work, a lot of time, here is SYLT Lyrics Plugin 1.0 . You can get it there: http://sites.rapidus.net/gpatrick

You can now tag all your mp3s with timestamped lyrics without having to deal with the bad lyrics3 format.


Don't forget yn0t's emphatic. The lyrics saved by this plugin can be used directly in your empeg using it: No more conversion needed. (Granted you select SYLT as your favorite format in the plugin's settings.)

I tried to catch all the nasty bugs in previous versions, but just to be sure, Select the option "Make a backup copy", at least for the first few files you edit. After making sure it doesn't destroy your files, you can turn it off again. I've been using it for a few months now and haven't got any problems, but precaution is always good.

Keep me informed about what you think of it. I'm open to suggestions. There are still a few things I'd like to see in this plugin, but I thought it would be enough for a 1.0 version.


Edited by elperepat (24/06/2004 00:03)
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Patrick

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#219453 - 23/06/2004 23:54 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: elperepat]
Waterman981
old hand

Registered: 14/02/2002
Posts: 804
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
Cool program! I felt special being the first person to visit your site according to your counter

When I first tried to open it, the plugin wouldn't open up. I closed all open windows, and when I closed the BBS window then it would come up. Dunno why it acted that way, but thought I would mention it. I just tagged Discotheque by U2, and it worked great. I opened up EvilLyrics to get the lyrics, copied and pasted , then clicked to tag. Worked great. Haven't uploaded to my player to check it out there yet. I like the preview once the file is saved. Great work! Maybe now I will finish adding lyrics to my MP3's. Wasn't Tony working on something new and special with Emphatic?
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-Michael

#040103696 on a shelf
Mk2a - 90 GB - Red - Illuminated buttons

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#219454 - 24/06/2004 00:02 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: Waterman981]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
Oh!!

It did the same here!!! It has to do with the way I use to "find " the plugin window. Because Internet Explorer had the same title as the plugin window, it restored IE instead of itself... Anyway, problem is solved... I changed the Subject of the BBS :-)


Thanks for the head-up
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Patrick

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#219455 - 24/06/2004 08:18 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: Waterman981]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
Wasn't Tony working on something new and special with Emphatic?
He sure was. And is. Unfortunately, he's very bad at resisting the urge to squeeze in extra features at the last minute.

No ETA at the moment, but the release of this plugin will hopefully be the kick in the ass I need to stop adding new stuff to it and just release the damn thing.

Great work, Patrick. Any plans to release the source now that it's a 1.0 release? I'd like to take a stab at integration with the lyrics website.
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- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#219456 - 24/06/2004 16:01 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: tonyc]
Waterman981
old hand

Registered: 14/02/2002
Posts: 804
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
We are all looking forward to it!

Patrick, an idea for you. What if this did like like Tony is suggesting, and downloaded lyrics from any number of sources automatically. But even better if it could look at the "Empeg SYLT Database" or whatever, and find the lyric and time stamp information automatically. If one isn't available it just loads the lyrics for us to time stamp. When you are done with your session, either have a prompt as you close the plugin, or automatically upload the SYLT frame information you just created to the database. Here is EvilLyrics Karaoke information. I think we could do something similar. Thoughts?

(BTW, EvilLyrics posted the sites it searches for lyrics here.)
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-Michael

#040103696 on a shelf
Mk2a - 90 GB - Red - Illuminated buttons

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#219457 - 25/06/2004 12:38 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: Waterman981]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
Here's a little update: the yet-to-be-released version 1.1 is currently able to retrieve lyrics from "SYLT Database" website. There are only a few available there, but submitting via the plugin should take care of that soon enough :-)

Thanks for the links. I'll add support for the few firsts in time for the release of 1.1, this weekend, if all goes well.

Heavy developpement in progress :-)

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Patrick

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#219458 - 25/06/2004 13:00 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: Waterman981]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
I found evillyrics a while ago way before they started the whole karaoke effort. That looks really cool, and they seem to have a good thing going. Perhaps we should find a way to integrate their site into our lyrics instead of reinventing the wheel. They've also got a much larger user base than we ever will.

The format of their files seems simple enough, anyone want to email and see if they'd be willing to share all of them? They do mention being able to download all of them in one file at some point in the future, so they don't seem too opposed.

Matthew

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#219459 - 25/06/2004 13:47 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: matthew_k]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
The main point of my plugin is to save the lyrics directly in the mp3s. No other files need to be linked (.lrc,.kas)

I started this project after I did the first lyrics scroller for the empeg. At that time, I was using an other winamp plugin to write lyrics in the MP3s. Later, I found that it was saving the lyrics in an unsupported id3v1 tag. After looking for a long time, couldn't find a lyrics editor that could save to the SYLT id3v2 frame. I then started the work of this plugin. If you ever find an other winamp plugin that do what I'm looking for, tell me! :-)

After reading back your post, I think you're questionning the "SYLT database", opposed to Evil Lyrics one. I can't really compare as I didn't used evilLyrics, but I'll try to see if I can decode the way the ask for lyrics to their website. Is evil lyrics completly free? Will I get any bad feedback if I use their database with my plugin??

Anyway, thanks for the comment...
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Patrick

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#219460 - 25/06/2004 14:29 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: elperepat]
tonyc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
IIRC, EvilLyrics has no database, per se. It searches a bunch of well-known lyrics sites, and if it doesn't have any luck on those, I think it just Googles the title and artist and pulls up the first hit or something

Adding that kind of logic into this plugin would seem non-trivial, and be a duplication of what could already be done if lyric submitters use EvilLyrics, paste the lyrics into Patrick's plugin, and go from there. Having it in one nice package might be nice, but I'd rather see other stuff like lyric submission to our own database first.
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- Tony C
my empeg stuff

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#219461 - 25/06/2004 23:42 Re: SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: tonyc]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
IIRC, EvilLyrics has no database, per se. It searches a bunch of well-known lyrics sites, and if it doesn't have any luck on those, I think it just Googles the title and artist and pulls up the first hit or something

You recall correctly, but you're out of date. Go read the web site, especially the karaoke section.

Matthew

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#219462 - 26/06/2004 01:27 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: elperepat]
adavidw
addict

Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
A couple of things I've noticed:

I've got one file that causes the plugin to throw "Run-time error '13'. Type mismatch". This file doesn't currently have any lyrics information, but the plugin doesn't like it for whatever reason.

When I select "Snap to Winamp" the window actually snaps itself somewhere offscreen or else goes into invisible mode.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get the other modes in the screen shots. Is that just playing with the colors and the window, or is there a way to select those modes specifically?

If I could make one request, it would be for multiple timestamps per line. This would help in the editing, but also help in the playback, to not make one have to scroll so long if a song just has a chorus that's repeated 19 times. To take it one step further, you could give the user the option of displaying the lyrics condensed, where the highlight just keeps flipping around the same repeated lines, or unfold the lyrics to display them as one long list.

Now, I don't know jack about the SYLT format. Maybe it only supports one time stamp per line. In that case, you'd have to get fancy and store the lines seperately, but deduplicate them by comparing every thing after the time stamp when you read them out of the tag. A little work in that case, but still possible.

I only make these suggestions because I think it's already possibly the best lyrics plugin for WinAmp (irrespective of any ties to the empeg), and should be made better because WinAmp has really needed a good lyrics plugin for a long time.
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-Aaron

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#219463 - 26/06/2004 23:49 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: adavidw]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
When I select "Snap to Winamp" the window actually snaps itself somewhere offscreen or else goes into invisible mode.

"Snap to winamp" should be renamed "Follow Winamp". I really meant it to snap, but I found out later that "magnetic" snap (the 3 winamp windows together) is really, really hard to do. So what Snap to winamp really do is:
  • Follow winamp state: if it's minimized, it minimize itself. If winamp is restored, or bring back to from, it also come in front.
  • Keeps a fix offset from winamp position. So, when activated, it should really act as if it was a part of winamp. You move it around by dragging it (not in edit mode; only in sing mode) and when you move winamp, it should move with it. I know, it's jerky for now. I may try to increase refresh rate in the next versions.

If the window really jump somewhere offscreen, it may be that it's offset are greater than your screen resolution... Just erase the sylt_plugin.ini file in winamp\plugin\SYLT Lyrics Plugin. It'll revert to default settings. You can also try to edit it and put 0 for SnapWinampX= and SnapWinampY= if you don't want to lose all your other settings.


I can't figure out how to get the other modes in the screen shots

These "modes" are only acheivable by tweaking the colors and the settings. There isn't a mode selection, yet ;-)


...it would be for multiple timestamps per line.

Version 1.1 should include this. Personnaly, I don't see the point of tagging the same line many times. I tend to copy/paste the chorus around, place everything perfectly by listening to the song once and then, the second time, I just click-as-you-sing by scrolling down. Easier than trying to find the chorus two pages up and then come back down for the rest of the song. But, that's only my way of doing it. I had that suggestion many times, and that's why it will be in next version.

Here's how it should work: You'll copy/paste the lyrics, click-as-you-sing them, tagging each line single or multiple line. When you'll save, it will flatten the lyrics (copy each line so there's only 1 timestamp per line), reorder everything and the save to the right format. If you edit the lyrics a second time, the chorus will be repeated (as it's now). The only drawback I can see is blank line without timestamp will be lost. Maybe I'll put that 'multiple tag per line' an option for those like me who prefer it the other way around and prefer to keep empty lines.


Thanks for the good comments!

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Patrick

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#219464 - 26/06/2004 23:56 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: elperepat]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
I found a bug in 1.0

The id3v1 genre tag is lost when saving to SYLT frame. That's something the vbid3lib does, and I don't know why.

There's a fix in v1.1 for this. (Will be released later this weekend)

If you want to continue to tag your lyrics, Select ".lrc file" as your favorite format in the settings. When 1.1 is released, move ".lrc" down a notch by putting back SYLT at the top, and check "Erase other formats". You'll just have to begin to play each song CTRL-L, CTRL-T. The lyrics will be transfered from the .lrc to the mp3, and the .lrc file will be deleted. You can then switch to the next song.

Sorry
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Patrick

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#219465 - 27/06/2004 00:52 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: elperepat]
Waterman981
old hand

Registered: 14/02/2002
Posts: 804
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
I think we need to keep the blank lines. When lyrics are scrolling in emphatic if you have one line that is pretty long, and a long break in lyrics due to a solo or something, that line scrolls slowly, and you will not see the end of the line until you get to the next line, sometimes 30 seconds later. I really think tagging empty lines is an important thing!
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-Michael

#040103696 on a shelf
Mk2a - 90 GB - Red - Illuminated buttons

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#219466 - 27/06/2004 01:33 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: Waterman981]
adavidw
addict

Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
I emphatically echo the needing to tag empty lines thing.

See, it's needed for 'emphatic', and I 'emphatically' echoed that... See... See what I did there?

Ah, nevermind.
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-Aaron

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#219467 - 27/06/2004 02:20 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: Waterman981]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
we need to keep the blank lines

And I do think so... The blank lines with timestamps will be kept. It'll be to the user to timestamp them if he wants to keep them. But sometimes, when there is no delay after chorus, I don't timestamp those, and that's what I meant... I'll just have to learn to timestamp everything! ;-)
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Patrick

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#219468 - 03/07/2004 14:31 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: elperepat]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
I've been using it for the last two days and it's really great. Combined with evilyrics it makes tagging just about as easy as it could be.

Is there any way "click as you sing" mode could automatically be entered/exited when winamp starts/stops playing? I always pause to edit, and unpause and start clicking, and I usualy forget the Ctrl-D on one of those.

It's really a great program, thanks for writing it.

Matthew

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#219469 - 03/07/2004 19:33 Re: The SYLT Lyrics Plugin for Winamp [Re: matthew_k]
elperepat
enthusiast

Registered: 11/01/2002
Posts: 211
Loc: Qc, Canada
Quote:
"click as you sing" mode could automatically be entered/exited when winamp starts/stops playing?


That could be done, at least as an option, if others don't want it that way. I'll think of it... Should be done for 1.1.


By the way, how long does it take for EvilLyrics to retrieve lyrics from the net? Is it instantaneous? 5 secs? Just asking to see if the plugin could be improved further more.

1.1 is in testing phase and should be released soon :-)



Just a little note:

Quote:
I always pause to edit, and unpause and start clicking


If you tag VBR mp3, you should stop and restart the song from beginning and try to avoid to seek or pause. I noticed a diference of up to 1 sec between plays. I was wondering why until I discovered that VBR timing isn't that great. So if you want repeatability, Stop, hit Play and tag from one end to the other. If you mess up and need to go back, hit Stop and restart with Play. It works the other way, but next time you will play the song, you might motice little lag or lead in scrolling. That's why.
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Patrick

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